November Link Drop

I know, it’s not November any more. I’m dropping links here for November stories I never got around to sharing or writing about but really wanted to. I figured it would be better to do so at the end of the week than on Tuesday. So, here are some more stories from November you might be interested in:

“The battle between People and the Market in the struggle for climate, environmental, and social justice continues. The next round of negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP16) is coming up in Cancun, Mexico from November 29 to December 10. Meanwhile, a series of caravans consisting of indigenous people, farmers, and social movements will be traveling from all around Mexico en route to Cancun, where they will host an Alternative Global Forum for Life and Environmental and Social Justice from December 5-8.”

“Poisoning is a horrific way to die. The last moments of life are cursed with dizziness, convulsions or excruciating pain. For the lucky few, death comes within minutes — but far too often, it’s a slow and agonizing spiral that can take hours.

“Each year, the Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services kills more than 10,000 wild animals with highly toxic sodium cyanide and sodium monofluoroacetate (known as Compound 1080) — and many of these poisonings occur on federal land.”

“… the governor of Kansas apparently fired his secretary of Health and Environment for refusing to fast-track a permit to build a new coal fired power plant. Health and Environment Secretary Rod Bremby first refused to permit the plant back in 2007 because of the harm the plant’s millions of tons of global warming pollution would cause. This made him the first state regulator to reject an air quality permit for a coal plant because of the health and environmental risks posed by carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide is the predominant greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. The plant would also release significant quantities of other harmful air pollutants including mercury and fine soot.”

“Greenpeace welcomes IEA´s call to cut the $312 billion in global fossil fuel subsidies, which would reduce fossil fuel demand and result in a fall of 2 gigatonnes CO2 or 5.8% of global energy related CO2 emission, according to the IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2010 report launched today.”

“Unfortunately, the world needs to take firm action about the threat of manmade climate change within the next decade…. Realistically, there may be no chance to educate the general public in depth about the science so quickly. Meanwhile, a well-funded and effective professional disinformation campaign has been successful in sowing confusion, and many people mistakenly think climate change science is unreliable or is controversial within the expert community. Thus, the more urgent task for us scientists may well be to give the public guidelines for recognizing and rejecting junk science and disinformation. If students today, who will be adults tomorrow, can understand and apply these guidelines, they may not need a detailed knowledge of climate change science. To that end, I offer the following six principles.”

“‘The eggshell fragments we found appeared abnormally thin,’ Mr. Burnett said. ‘They were so thin that we had to run tests to confirm that it was a condor egg.’ The fragments reminded him of the thin-shelled eggs from birds like brown pelicans and peregrine falcons, which had been devastated by DDT but are now on the rebound.

“The discovery raised a disturbing question: could DDT — the deadly pesticide that has been banned in the United States since 1972 — produce condor reproductive problems nearly four decades later?”

“Every major reform in our nation’s history has suffered defeats on the path to victory. From free trade to civil rights, setbacks have been a part of progress. But ultimate victory comes to those who learn from their defeats and press forward with new determination and perseverance.

“The failure of the United States Senate to pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation this year was a serious setback for America, and for the world. The continuing cascade of scientific evidence shows that we are dangerously changing our climate, and the urgent need to act remains. So what do we do?”

“Wouldn’t all of that Thanksgiving dinner prep be awesome if you could get a workout while doing it? That’s exactly what the pedal-powered food processor concept, by student designer Christoph Thetard, intends to do.

“The concept, awesomely dubbed the R2B2, is a multi-use kitchen appliance that is capable of generating 350 watts per minute, while pedaling 450rpm.”

“A couple of weeks ago, I received an email from eBay’s Green Team (something I undoubtedly signed up for during one of my online shopping marathons). For once, I was pleasantly surprised by something that seemed like spam. The email blast was advertising eBay’s electronic recycling services, so I decided to check it out. Hey it was National Recycling Week, so I thought, why not?”

Zach is the director of CleanTechnica, the most popular cleantech-focused website in the world, and Planetsave, a world-leading green and science news site. He has been covering green news of various sorts since 2008, and he has been especially focused on solar energy, electric vehicles, and wind energy since 2009.
Aside from his work on CleanTechnica and Planetsave, he's the founder and director of Solar Love, EV Obsession, and Bikocity.
To connect with Zach on some of your favorite social networks, go to ZacharyShahan.com and click on the relevant buttons.

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